Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Yes, I tried to create some hype last week for this project. But I think it’s worthy! It’s definitely my favorite of all the projects I’ve ever worked on! So maybe I’m not being completely objective (ha!), I did start with my Grandma Muriel’s old train case.

I remember my grandma coming to visit us carrying all her essentials…hair & makeup stuff in this very train case. She never would have left home without being prepared to fix her hair or makeup. And as the years went on, I’m pretty sure most of it was filled with different sorts of medication. But what I remember most about this train case, is that grandma always had little surprises for my brother and I hidden inside, so she could get to them easily as soon as we picked her up at the bus station. Even though she had to switch buses a couple times on her 14 hour journey, she refused to fly. Airplanes just weren’t her thing.

So when my mom gave the train case to me, a few years after grandma passed away, I knew I had to do something special with it. And when the Transatlantique paper collection arrived from Graphic 45 last year, I knew just what that “something” was.

Right when I saw Transatlantique, I knew the blues would match the train case perfectly. And the graphics on the paper drew me to it even more so than the colors. The travel scenes from the early 20th century couldn’t be more fitting for this train case. My grandma grew up in New Jersey, just outside Manhattan. Her father worked for the railroad. Grandma’s family traveled to the Jersey Shore each summer, spending time relaxing at the beach, while my great grandfather took the train to meet them every weekend. Grandma’s parent were from England and Germany. Her German grandmother traveled across the Atlantic by ship to visit her when, as a child, she was stricken with polio. Of course, Grandma survived and later went to school to become a hair stylist. After she married, her husband traveled the world in the Navy during World War II. An independent lady always, Grandma received a letter from her husband that his ship would be coming to port in San Diego, and she set out alone to travel across the country by train. I can’t imagine what determination and bravery it must have taken her to pack her things and get on that train, alone, not knowing where she would stay or what she would do once she arrived in faraway California. Thank goodness, she met a nice family on the train who took her into their home when they arrived in San Diego, for her husband’s ship would not come to port until much later. When the ship finally did come in, in San Francisco, not San Diego, Grandma had fallen in love with another man, who would later become my Grandpa. But that’s a story for another time….

As for the train case, it has also traveled many miles during its lifetime. I thought you might appreciate it and the papers I chose to cover it with, if you knew a little about the travels of my grandmother. So many of the scenes on the Transatlantique papers show trains and ships, while many of the locations mentioned, like New York and Atlantic City, were special to my grandma. I just wish there had been a graphic showing the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. But I’m so happy with how the project turned out, I’ll let it slide!

I’m sure you’re waiting for me to talk about the project, so enough of my grandma’s story. I started by choosing one of each of the papers in the Transatlantique collection, along with the matching die cut tag sheet. I used Modge Podge to attach the papers to the train case.

I started on the bottom of the case, by measuring the distance between the top and bottom trim pieces. I chose a paper with a larger pattern to cover this section, planning to use individual travel “stickers” placed randomly over the top of the paper later in my project. (Many of the papers in this collection show graphics for the travel stickers collected all over the world in times past, and stuck onto the suitcases, trunks and train cases of the travelers.) Once I had cut my paper to the correct height, I folded it around the case, being especially careful to press around the edges of the hardware. I used short tipped, very sharp scissors to cut around the creases the hardware made in my paper. Next, I painted the bottom of the case with Modge Podge and carefully laid my paper in its place. After the paper was laid down, I coated the surface with Modge Podge, using care to avoid getting the Modge Podge on the hardware.

For the strip around the lid, I cut a sheet of paper, covered with travel stamps, in vertical strips and applied it in the same way as I had for the bottom part of the case. Before cutting the strips, I measured the space between the trim pieces on the lid and found that I would not be able to place the stamps in that area laying vertically. I was disappointed, but decided to cut the sheet of stamps in columns and lay them down horizontally. In the end, I think it looks just fine.

Next I looked at the lid and decided to use individual travel “stickers,” cut out of another sheet of paper. I cut out all the “stickers” first, looking to see which ones might have had significance to my grandma. I set these aside. Then I chose large “stickers” to put down first. For the curves in the corners, I carefully pressed the paper pieces down, creating creases to use as cutting lines. I used Modge Podge to apply each layer of “stickers,” putting those I thought my grandma would have liked best on last. After applying all the “stickers,” I applied one more coat of Modge Podge.

For one last touch, I chose some of the tags from the die cut sheet and tied them onto the handle using garden twine and kitchen string. These two items seemed more old fashioned than ribbon. I could see Grandma grabbing them out of the drawer at the last minute before her trip and using them to attach a luggage tag.

I haven’t shared the inside of the case, because I haven’t decided what I should do with it. Right now, it’s a little worn and waiting for a special use. I think I’ll use the case for carrying some of my scrapbooking supplies. It only seems right to use it to carry things that are important to me, just the way Grandma always did.

I hope this project inspires you to create a special memory for yourself! Grab that Modge Podge and a stack of your favorite Graphic 45 papers and get to work! For more Graphic 45 inspiration, don't forget to check their blog!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

When I came across these photos, in a stash my mom had given me when my grandmother died, I just knew I had to create a special layout for them. While I'm not sure of the exact date of the photos, I am sure that I was in high school at the time. My Grandma Muriel was visiting. She and my mom had decided to pull my mom's wedding dress and veil out of the hope chest, where they'd been my whole life. They thought it would be fun for me to try on the dress my mom made herself for her wedding. It was a fun day and I remember thinking, "Wow, my mom was sure young when she got married!" She was only 17 years old at the time, barely. But it was the 60's and people were doing all sorts of things very young back then! This year my parents will celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary this year, so I guess everything worked out just as it was supposed to!

Looking through Graphic 45's beautiful Fashionista collection made me think of all the beautiful things my mom has sewn over the years, including a few of my prom dresses and most importantly, my wedding dress. I thought these papers would help tell the story of her creations. I love the idea of creating a fashion board, like the designers do, and set about creating one for my page. I stayed with the blacks & ivories of the papers and combined them with white from the wedding dress. I used odds & ends of ribbons that I felt had a retro feel. With the neutral palette, I chose papers and ribbons with lot's of different textures. I love the lacy-ness (not sure if that's a word, but I like it) of the black die cut paper from Creative Imaginations, mixed with the softness of the felt ribbon, combined with the distressed look I gave the papers, tearing and inking them before adhering them to the page. The little "pop" of black glazed paper is from SEI and helps balance the layout when set opposite the satin ribbon across the bottom of the page.

I love how this layout turned out! For a finishing touch, I used a 7 Gypsies journal card to tell a little bit about the time I tried on my mom's wedding dress. I really like how Graphic 45 papers help me tell the stories from my past. I find that the colors from their collections always combine with my photos and let them stand out. I can't wait to share another Graphic 45 project with you next week. I'll give you a little hint and be sure to check back next week, it's a doozy! I completed my next project back in November and have been waiting for the perfect time to share it with you. It also has to do with my Grandma Muriel, if you've been in the store, you've probably already seen it, but I've got quite a few photos of the process I used to create it, so see you back here next week for the big unveil....

Tips

Use my "fashion board" idea to create a layout of your wedding or prom dress. You could also use this idea to document the process you used to redecorate a room, using the fabrics & embellishement pieces in your layout.

Don't be afraid to distress some of your papers, while keeping others crisp & fresh looking.

Not every layout has to be thought of as part of a double page spread, some pages just stand on their own when placed in your album.

Monday, February 15, 2010

I'm the Featured Craft Blogger on the Scrapaholic Studio blog by Mrs. Licky. Along with the features, she shares her layouts, cards, and all sorts of things she creates with her Cricut in her posts. Be sure to check out her other Featured Craft Bloggers, down in the "Interview with Crafty Bloggers" section.

It was a lot of fun thinking about all the questions and getting my answers together. I had the chance to think about how I got into scrapbooking and crafting in general. It was fun to chat about my favorite scrapbooking supplies and tools. I also got a chance to revisit my goals in blogging and scrapbooking.

I am trying to remember my words for 2010, BELIEVE & ACHIEVE, each and every day. I try to do a little work toward my goals each day. And the honor of being featured on another blog is a big part of my goal of bringing my blog to more readers in the scrapbooking community!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

I hope everyone is all prepared for Valentine's Day! I still have a few cards to make & projects to finish. I've been a very busy girl for the last week or so. I've finished quite a few projects. One for Delaney, this Valentine layout and one to submit for an Ella Publishing contest...if it wins, I'll share it with you when it's published and if not, it will make a fun Layout of the Week. I'll share the others with you soon.

I created this week's layout with my favorite Valentine collection of the season, Love Bandit by Bo Bunny. (Check out Bo Bunny's Blog for lot's more Valentine inspiration!) I love the use of color on these papers. It's refreshing to get away from just red & pink papers for this holiday. Not that I don't love all the hearts & sparkle Valentine's brings, but too much of anything can be overkill. So this cute collection full of little racoons & bugs jumped out at me.

Once I chose the paper, I happened upon a sketch contest on Ella Publishing's blog. When I looked over the sketch, I thought it was the perfect layout for my papers & the photos of my kids. Since brown is one of my favorite colors, I love to use sepia tone photos. These photos are from Jake's 2nd Birthday a couple weeks ago. He's wearing his red Christmas "mun-in" (monkey) jammies and they certainly didn't complement the Love Bandit papers at all. So I printed them in sepia which looks great with the browns & other colors of these papers.

Lately it seems like I've been making a lot of single page layouts. In the past, I was a total double page spread (DPS) girl. My love of symmetry always led me to create two pages for each layout. But I have started to find more value in one nice large photo for a single page layout, you know, a picture is worth a 1,000 words & all. But I love this Love Bandit paper collection so much, that I decided to add a right side page to my sketch for the Ella contest. I chose the blue patterned paper, I like how it coordinates with the brown background of the left side without being exactly the same. See what you think....

And here the two layouts are side by side, just like they'll look in my album...

I hope everyone enjoyed my Valentine layout! And I hope you enjoy your long weekend...hopefully it is a long one for you like it is for us!

Happy Valentine's Day!

See you back here tomorrow for Ann's Virtual Girls' Night Out! All you bloggers out there really should check out Ann's party! We have a lot of fun every Friday night, meeting & greeting bloggers from all around the web and the world! I wonder if Ann's theme will be Valentine's Day or the Olympics or a combo of the two. Those of us on the West Coast are very excited that they Olympics are in our time zone this year, maybe we'll catch more of the action!

Tips

Use sepia tone photos to easily coordinate a layout with brown tones.

Use 7 Gypsies buckles to hold just one little knot of ribbon instead of on ribbon running all the way across your page.

Don't be afraid to use two different background papers on one DPS. Do try for a solid or unobtrusive background if one side is a pattern.

Don't let your photos hide your pattern. Get out that craft knife & use it to trim around part of your pattern. Check out the right side layout. I used the craft knife to cut around the portion of the tree that would have been hidden under my photo mat. Then I stuck my photo mat under that portion of the tree, letting the tree pop out over my photo.

Don't let those extra dots that come in the packs of THICKERS go to waste, use them as mock brads! I put them on my tags on the left side layout.

Monday, February 8, 2010

I've been seeing so many scrapbooking bloggers who have chosen their "theme words" for this year. I find tons of inspiration in the blogs by Ali Edwards and Katie the Scrapbook Lady. Click on their names to read about their words for 2010. I started wondering what type of word I might choose that would embody my goals for this year. I thought about all the goals I've set for myself in 2010. One of the big ones is to get my act together & get back into exercising...OK, it has been a few years, but I still call it getting "back" into it. Along with the exercising, I'm working on eating less & healthier foods. Of course these two things add into another big goal of losing weight. Those three are my personal goals for my body in 2010. Then I have an entirely different set of goals for myself in 2010. These goals concern my love of scrapbooking and this blog. My biggest goal for the blog is to eventually, hopefully in 2010, begin to gather some sponsors. I am still relatively new to blogging, starting about a year and a half ago. So I have some research to do to even start out toward that goal. But I think that setting big goals gives me something to work toward. A smaller, probably more attainable goal, is to find more followers who are interested in scrapbooking and papercrafting. I'm taking some steps to reach that goal already. And of course I'd appreciate it if any of you could pass along a link to my blog, or grab my button to jazz up your blog! Thanks in advance! :)

So after considering these goals, my word, or words just jumped right out at me last week when I was putting away Jake's laundry. Hanging on the wall in his room is a saying that Dave chose when we decorated Jake's room. It says, "BELIEVE and ACHIEVE." Reading it that day made me think of my goals and I realized that these two words would help me reach my goals for 2010.

So along with eating healthy & working out, I'm going to BELIEVE I can ACHIEVE my goals in 2010! I'd love to hear your word(s) for the year...or just get you started thinking about what they might be! It isn't only in January that we can resolve to strive for something special for ourselves and our families this year!

Friday, February 5, 2010

Well, it's finally Friday! It's sure been a busy week around my house...Jake's birthday last Sunday and our niece visiting for the weekend...Delaney out of school on Monday and lunch with my parents...Lot's of homework, housework, preparing for my Valentine card class on Sunday...And then last night two burglaries in our neighborhood. I'm housesitting for my neighbors, who are on vacation this week, and someone broke down their door, but didn't end up stealing anything. At least the alarm was set and seems to have stopped the guy at the door. But just knowing that someone was next door to my house, breaking down the door is unnerving! The police officer who responded last night and the detective I spoke with today said that both houses were dark with outside lights on. So now I'll be sure to leave lights on inside my house whenever we are gone at night. Sure hope they catch the guy soon. I was asked recently if I thought of my neighborhood as safe and I said yes. It sure seems safe to live in a nice neighborhood with nice houses and nice yards, close to a nice school. But I guess I would have to answer differently the next time I'm asked....

OK, I'm going to force myself to think about something more fun right now! I'm getting ready to teach my Valentine card class on Sunday at the Hillsboro Library. If you're in the area, it's free and we'll take the first 15 people who come to make 3 cards, a gift tag and a gift box.

I hope you are all getting into the Valentine spirit, making Valentine's, helping your kids with theirs, or maybe picking out fun decorations for their Valentine boxes. At Delaney's school, the kids make their boxes at home and bring them on Valentine's Day. I'll have to share a photo of hers with you, once she's done with it! If you're looking for Valentine ideas, there are some very cute ones that you can download, just check down the right column of my blog in the "Get Your Creative On" section for some of the latest Valentine blog posts.

I'm in the middle of a lot of great projects right now! I can't wait to share them with all of you! I should have some fun Layout of the Week features over the next few weeks. I'll share some fun details with you, so you have something to look forward to...I'm making Delaney a Bo Bunny Chipboard album full of memories from her last birthday party...I'm creating 2 travel layouts with Reminisce's new Passport collection...I'm putting together a layout about me, yes ME, we really do need to have a photo or two of ourselves in our albums every so often...and for one last Valentine's Day surprise, I'm excited about a layout featuring photos of my two sweeties and Bo Bunny's Love Bandit Collection, one of the sweetest Valentine collections out there!

So if you're a scrapbooker or papercrafter, or if you know someone who is one, please sign up to follow my blog or subscribe to my feed to get my latest posts in your inbox! I'm on a quest to get to 200 followers, and I'd appreciate any help you can give me!

In a trend I've seen on tons of other scrapbooking blogs, I've chosen 2 words to be my Theme for 2010. I'll share them with you in my next post! But part of choosing these 2 specific words, is that I have to put myself out there and ask for what I want. One of my goals for 2010 is to become part of a design team and another is to find scrapbook related sponsors for my blog! If you have any ideas to help me reach my goals, please leave me a comment! And thanks for helping me attain my goals in 2010!

Card Supplies

Patterned Papers - 3 Bugs in a Rug, Smitten Collection

Cardstock - World Win, Bazzill

Sticker - 3 Bugs in a Rug, Smitten Collection

Cardstock Strip - Bazzill, Just the Edge

PS-If you're looking for a fun party tonight where you can hang out in your pj's & meet some other fun bloggers, join me at my friend Ann's Virtual Girls Night Out! Ann is certainly the Hostess with the Mostest...and she needs a little company while she's home tending to a sick little one tonight! As usual, she's sharing a yummy drink, some party music and a little game...just for fun and perfect for the chilly middle of our Oregon winters.

My Mighty 3

3 places I'd rather be right now:

1-Mexico....can't wait, I'm lucky enough to be spending a few days down there with some friends celebrating our 40 birthdays!!!!!! YEAH! More on this later!

2-Sunriver, Oregon....the thought of a little snow and a toasty drink in the lodge...ahhhhhhh

3-OK, this isn't a drink exactly, but never and I mean NEVER EVER consider trying a Cuban cigar when you've had too much rum or any other liquor for that matter...worst Jamaican memory!

3 people I'd like to have dinner with, not necessarily all at once:

1-Patrick Dempsey...you know why...

2-George Clooney...duh!

3-Rachel Ray...she'd be fun at a party and she could cook for me!

(I wasn't sure if the people had to be living or not, if they don't have to be, I'd put my Grandma Muriel at the top of the list. I'd love to get a chance to ask her all about her life and being a mom!)

OK, now head on over to Ann's, join the party and let me know your Mighty 3!

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About Me

I'm passionate about CREATING. Always have been...
I LOVE using my creativity in every part of my life.
I have a varied background...I've had a lot of jobs...receptionist, library, fast food chain, Chinese restaurant, University President's Office, The Gap, Natural Wonders, Maurice's, for a crazy lady (or 2), Escrow Officer, mortgage company in docs/funding & marketing, filled out government orders for airplane glue (yep)...and most recently & most fun, for my local LSS in design/education/marketing...and now I own my own transcription business, so I have time to play and go out on my own in the creative world! Recently my designs have been at CHA & on HSN! I've got SO many plans!
Join me, as I share my latest papercrafting projects and other creative ideas. Learn new tips & techniques you can use in your home or on your next papercrafting project.